Schoolhouse Talk!: assessment

Showing posts with label assessment. Show all posts

September 30, 2015

Speech/Language Learning Targets

help students understand their speech/language therapy goals and progress

Does your district require you to post student learning goals? Where I work, we follow the Marzano teacher evaluation model, which does require us to post learning goals. With special education, it's a little more tricky to post goals since everything is so individualized. And you know with speech/language students that we have dozens of different therapy goals that we work with.

I have a set of learning targets that I have been using, but needed something portable that I could take with me if I was working in classrooms or hallways, and would also allow me to quickly let students know what they are working on. My district has also talked extensively about using scales with students to give them some insight into how they are doing. Thus, this little flip book was born:

Features:
- 88 different learning targets with "I can..." statements
- student rating scales on each card to discuss progress
- blank cards for you to write your own student goals
- full-page blank targets
- tabs to make it easy to flip to the content area you are working on

You can pick up a copy for your own therapy room here. I hope they are useful for you and your students and help you score points during those teacher observations/evaluations!

November 04, 2014

Role Reversal - Let Students Be the SLP!

having your students be the SLP for one session is a a quick and fun way to see how well they understand their speech therapy goals

This year one of the QR codes in my student reward system allows students to "be the SLP" for their next session. It has turned out to be one of the best rewards in my whole system - for myself and my students. Allowing my students to be the SLP for the day enables them to be in charge, which helps them "buy in" to what they are learning, and gives me a nice way for me to assess how well they actually understand what we have been working on. A type of formative assessment if you will.

Typically during these role reversals, we start with a quick review of the concept or vocabulary we will be using that session. I am still in the teaching role at this point. Basically, I review the learning target for that session and prepare them for what we will be doing. I also make sure to have all the materials ready to go. That way we won't be using up precious time searching for board games, books, or flash cards.

Then we switch roles (Freaky Friday style), and I'm now the "learner"! I always throw in some incorrect answers or inaccurate sound productions from time to time. If I get an answer wrong, that allows me to see if my student can recognize my mistake and help me correct it. It shows a higher level of understanding on their part. If they don't catch my error, I will step out of my "learner" role back into the "SLP" role and make sure we both understand the error and how to correct it.

While I'm being the "learner" I can never quite fully stop being the SLP. I make sure to take note of any terms or concepts that my speech therapy students seem to struggle in "teaching" me. At the end, when we switch back to our regular roles (me as SLP, student as the Learner), I go back and review those tricky concepts and follow-up with them again the next time we meet.

So far, my students have had a blast being the SLP! They really get into their new roles and make sure all the rules are being followed. They're not afraid to give behavior warnings or remind me to listen with my whole body! It's a win-win situation for both of us: they have fun taking over that leadership role and showing me what they know, and I benefit from seeing what they have mastered and what still needs to be worked on further.

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Have you ever let your students teach you? What have you learned from them?

January 21, 2014

Narrative Language Intervention Resources

a round-up of resources for teaching narrative language skills

There are so many resources out there for us to use when helping our students improve their narrative language skills! Yesterday I touched on Sandi Gillam's SKILL program, and today I thought it would be nice to corral a bunch of useful resources in one place. Here we go!

PROFESSIONAL PRODUCTS:

SKILL (Supporting Knowledge in Language and Literacy) (Sandi Gillam) - Complete program to teach individual story grammar elements, story retell, and independent story generation.

Story Grammar Marker (MindWing Concepts) - Complete program using icons to help children learn to tell and retell stories, improve comprehension, writing, and social communication.

Strong Narrative Assessment Procedure (Carol J. Strong) - Uses wordless picture books to assess narrative skills. Includes instructions for how to elicit and analyze story retelling samples, and how to develop an intervention program based on the results.

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FROM SCHOOLHOUSE TALK:

First off, a plug for my newest packet because I am just SO excited about it! I was so enthused after participating in some narrative language trainings recently, that I created an update to my Story Grammar Prompts packet. It's a complete overhaul!

This packet is jam-packed with goodies! Here's what's inside:

This might be my favorite packet yet! You can read more about it on Teachers Pay Teachers.

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ACTIVITIES/INFORMATION from other SLP BLOGGERS: